Free Republic

Northern Illinois has its share of public works projects that have languished in the “planning stages” for years without ever seeing an inaugural bucket of concrete poured. Millions spent, nothing delivered. A third airport in Peotone comes to mind. So do the Illiana toll road and, for those with long memories, the Crosstown Expressway proposal of the 1960s and ’70s. You probably can put the Route 53 extension on the same dusty shelf. Proposals for an expressway that would extend Route 53 into Lake County stretch back to the 1960s. ADVERTISING inRead invented by Teads But now the Chicago Metropolitan...

A Lake County environmental group on Thursday sued the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority to stop it from spending any more money to study an extension of Route 53. The lawsuit, filed in Lake County Circuit Court in Waukegan by Livable Lake County and six area homeowners, alleges the Tollway failed to abide by state law in pursuing the controversial project. Specifically, the lawsuit claims that the Tollway violated the Illinois Toll Highway Act by failing to get proper authorization for the corridor from the Illinois legislature and not holding required public hearings. Anthony Vega, a representative for Livable Lake...

After years of angst over whether to extend Route 53 north into Lake County, the Illinois tollway moved with dizzying speed last week approving a $25 million study of the project. But while the board's vote took seconds, there were hours of fraught testimony from environmentalists fearful of pollution, residents worried about losing their homes, commuters sick of sitting in traffic and construction industry representatives lobbying for jobs. Here are five take-aways from a momentous week: 1. Promising to pay for the extension could be a game-changer. Unlike his predecessors, Chairman Bob Schillerstrom pledged that if Route 53 is extended,...

REFERENDUM ON THE EXTENSION OF ROUTE 53 TO BE CONSIDERED For years, a lack of local consensus has been cited as a main reason the proposed Route 53 extension into Lake County has not moved forward. Lake County Board Commissioner David Stolman of Buffalo Grove is leading an effort by Lake County officials to attempt to resolve that situation on April 7th. The County is considering placing an advisory Referendum on whether Route 53 should be extended as a tollway from Lake Cook Road north into Lake County and then east to the Tri-State Tollway on the April 7, 2009...